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“Yes, you’re making that pretty clear,” Dillon nods. I can see the hint of a smile playing at his lips.
“This is not a relationship. I don’t even want a relationship, of any kind, got it?” she continues.
“All of it,” he responds.
“And stop answering! I’m not even talking to you!” she huffs, scowling seriously.
To his credit, he doesn’t try to get another word in, just raises his hands like he’s surrendering.
“Okay, please continue,” I smile politely. “You were saying? Something about not liking me very much?”
“Exactly!” she announces, focusing her attention on me. I like it. It feels like a blast of warm air. “Hannah asked me to help you guys out. I'll help. You and I will appear… alone… several times and make everybody think we’re in love. Regular people love, not extreme porn, banging in fountains, double your pleasure. No sex tapes. No threesomes on balconies. We’ll let Perez Hilton scoop... a proposal. Okay? It’ll be like a real-life Bachelor where you get all rehabilitated by the power of love.”
She raises her eyebrows at me, waiting, like this is a staring contest. Or a dare.
“A proposal, eh? Like down on one knee and everything?” I ask, squinting. She swallows hard, almost faltering. But her strength is holding up.
“Yes. Can you think of anything better? Nobody will doubt your true blue intentions if they get to watch the whole thing unfold in front of their eyes. Nice big rock. Something that can be seen from space will do the trick. And I’ll give back the ring as soon as your merger is done, so don’t forget to keep the receipt.”
She waves her hand the air as though, ta-dah, she has just revealed a magic trick.
“No deal,” Dillon shrugs.
I turn to him, surprised.
“No deal?” I repeat. “Actually, it sounds pretty good to me. Looks like she has thought of everything. Let's just go with it.”
He rubs his jaw with the palm of his hand, a shrewd look in his eyes. “I get to be there for everything,” he counters.
“No way,” she replies. “That's the problem. It’s exactly what got you in this mess. You guys need to show a little daylight between yourselves. Stop people from thinking about your latest scandal. Or your last one, for that matter. Or the one before that.”
“Yeah, sure, Dillon,” I agree, ignoring her frustrated huff. “Sounds good to me. We’ll make it work.”
“No!” she exclaims. “Do you two have a hearing problem? You're supposed to look normal. As in one-guy-one-girl normal. Just for a few weeks. Can you even do that?”
I drop to one knee in front of her, plucking her hand out of the air and holding it between mine. It's warm, like I'm holding a live baby seal between my palms. I feel it tremble, just slightly, but not because she's frightened. She's excited, and I know it. She’s a natural negotiator, able to keep her wits about her while swimming straight through a swarming shark pit.
Yet there is something in her eyes that holds her back. And just like a little baby seal, it inspires me to chase her. I absolutely have to find out what that tastes like.
“Listen, Bella,” I begin reasonably, “we’re willing to participate in your plan, but there are limits. Dillon and I, we're not like other men. Certainly not normal, everyday, regular men. So you can concoct whatever fantasy you want for Hannah, and Google, and Perez fucking Hilton. But Dillon and I do things our way. And that means... both of us.”
She swallows. I watch her throat clench, immediately picturing her lips wrapped around the base of my cock. That's going to happen. I'm sure of it.
“But you haven’t been straight with us. What are you getting out of this anyway?” I ask her in a whisper. “Certainly you are not doing it because you need a few more points to get into heaven?”
She shakes her head, pressing her lips together. It looks like she's going to answer a few times, then abandons the effort, then finally figures it out.
“All I want is a job,” she finally says. “All I want is to do my thing, my way. That's all.”
I sigh for a long time. Middle-class people have no imagination.
“Okay, Bella,” I answer her reasonably. “We’ll be asking that question again in a few weeks to see if you can come up with a better answer.”
“Fine,” she spits, narrowing her eyes shrewdly. “I want a book.”
“What?” Dillon asks, alarmed. “About us?”
“Hold on, hold on,” I say to him, lifting a hand like, wait. I search her face. Her lips are firmly pressed together, her eyes shiny with desire. “What kind of book?”
